A GARDEN DIARY 195 



turned into a simple mockery. Even to-day's 

 news sounds thin and unreal, and the tale of 

 Mafeking is as it were the tale of some defence 

 read of long since in an ancient, a seldom- 

 opened history, the actors and heroes of which 

 have long vanished and been forgotten. We 

 are but poor, bedimmed mirrors all of us, and 

 what we reflect is rarely the real thing, more 

 often only some blurred and distorted image 

 projected by our own sad selves. 



